Massey, Raymond. 
Captain Cook: the early years from Farmboy to Sailor. 
Published by the author. 
2026. 
152 pages. 
ISBN 978-1-7330290-3-2. 

Raymond Massey is an accomplished marine artist with a special interest in Captain Cook.  He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, UK, but now lives in the USA.  He is a Fellow of the American Society of Marine Artists, and a member of the Nautical Research Guild.  His paintings include some of Resolution and Discovery during Cook’s Third Voyage off the Hawaiian Islands, and the west coast of North America.  More recently, Massey has turned to writing, with both novels and non-fiction books, all with a maritime theme. 

Massey’s latest book makes a refreshing change from the usual books on Cook, which focus on his adult life at sea. 

The book begins with Cook’s father travelling from Scotland to North Yorkshire.  It continues with Cook’s life from his birth at Marton in 1728 to leaving Staithes for Whitby in 1746. 

The book’s greatest contribution to the body of Cook knowledge is Massey’s intriguing work on locating the position of the buildings in Marton and Great Ayton associated with the young James Cook.  He achieves this remarkable outcome by studying old publications, maps, and the drawings of George Cuit (1743-1818), a Yorkshire landscape painter who was commissioned by Lord Mulgrave “to draw various sites in Cleveland associated with Captain Cook’s early life”. 

At Marton, Massey pinpoints the site of the clay biggin where Cook was born.  In doing so, Massey disproves the accepted opinions that it was either off Marton Back Lane, or on the site of the granite vase erected by Henry Bolckow in 1858, near to where the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum now stands.  Massey has also located the likely position of Dame Walker’s school, Marton, which Cook attended.

In Great Ayton, Massey applies his analysis to the two Cook-related buildings of the Postgate School and Aireyholme Farm.  He speculates that the current schoolroom museum building was not entirely new when it was rebuilt in 1786, but retained some of the lower courses of stonework from the original building.  Just outside Great Ayton stands the famous hill “Roseberry Topping”.  Massey comes up with five versions of the old spelling of Roseberry, which are in addition to the known twelve versions of the name!  Incidentally, “Topping” is derived from the Old Norse “Toppinn” meaning hill-top, and not from Old English “Topp”. 

Massey rightly points out the inherent contradic­tion in the legend of the young Cook being rescued from a bird-nesting climb on the rocky face of Rose­berry Topping by a sentinel guarding a beacon.  Massey offers the explanation that the beacon would have been prepared against fears of a Scottish invasion in 1745.  Bird-nesting would have been a Springtime activity, while the Scottish army led by Bonnie Prince Charlie did not enter England until November 1745.  Another explanation for doubting the legend is that Cook was probably already in Staithes by November 1745. 

Another questionable point in the book is when Massey writes that the local production of alum was a wasteful process, with 100 tons of shale required to produce 3 tons of alum.  The process was even more wasteful.  Loftus Alum Works records for 1806–1828 show that 72 tons of shale were needed to produce each ton of alum.  On this basis, 100 tons of shale would produce only 1.4 tons of alum.

As a marine artist, Massey excels in creating visual scenes from Cook’s youth.  There are many such scenes in the book, adding new colour to Cook’s early life.  In a particularly fascinating part of the book, Massey has used his artistic skills to explore the apparent differences between the portraits of Cook by Nathaniel Dance and John Webber.

Massey is to be commended for his compre­hensive research, and for the many illustrations in the book that bring this research to life.  He asks some controversial, yet interesting, questions.  Did the Cooks move from Marton to Ormesby before settling in Great Ayton?  Is there any connection between the education of two of Thomas Skottowe’s sons (contemporaries of the young James) and Cook’s education.  The book genuinely offers a new insight into many aspects of Cook’s early life and, as such, I would thoroughly recommend it to members of CCS.  Quite apart from probably adding to their knowledge of Cook’s early days, they will be able to ponder over some of the issues raised by Massey. 

Ian Pearce

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 10, volume 49, number 2 (2026).